Holy Symmetry!!

By DOVID BEN-MEIR
You think that symmetry means: one red rose on the right and one on the left, too. But the international media's taught me: it ain't so. Symmetry really means: red rose on the right, lawnmower on the left.
It's like something Loonie Louie taught me as a kid through his sterling example, one of the times I had the misfortune of having to visit relatives in Brooklyn, the Apple. See, we were in this playground and I went up the monkey bars (primitives that we were – we still did those dangerous things like climb monkey bars or skip fences). Loonie went to the swings, but the problem was: – no swings available. So Loonie just grabbed a kid and threw him off. Then, in order to insure that this shining example of sharing the wealth held, he hit the kid once. Then this kid – the nerve of him! – hit back! Twice!!
Loonie Louie – shocked at the anti-socialist lack of justice – incredulously cried out: "He hit me back!!"
In order to balance the universe Loonie felt obligated – forced against his gentle nature – to tackle the kid and pound him. In the meantime a girl with glasses grabbed the swing and what could you do? Being a girl and wearing glasses gave her a double immunity – but Loonie fought on, as he later explained, for the principle of the thing, not the material benefit of the swing.
"Waza world gonna come'ta if kids gonna hit back, for crying out loud!" he explained philosophically while holding some ice against his swollen left eye. I was soaking all this in, for future reference.
The fight was finally broke up by Loonie Louie's pa, Horrible Hymie. I think Horrible wasn't his real name; at least I didn't dare call him that to his face. I just respectfully called him Mr. Rosenberg, knowing vaguely that he's a cousin. Hymie was a tough guy with a number on his arm – how else could he have survived the Nazi camps? He'd worked his way up from shoeshine boy to be the owner of two shoe factories.
He picked Louie up with one hand (the other kid scrammed at the sight of Horrible) and yelled at him: "Vat you to do, you good-fo-nuttin'?? Vy my boychik schmutzik (dirty) fighting??"
Louie whined: "I wasn't fightin' dirty, pop, I was fightin' real good!"
"Vy you fight dat schmendrik? Vadyou – some kinda marine you??" Hymie didn't lessen his steel grip a bit.
Loonie appealed to his dad's sense of justice: "He started it pop, wasn't my fault."
"Yeh?" Hymie eyed his son warily, probably thinking: maybe this time Louie might tell some truth.
"Ya, pop, it would'na started if he would'na hit me back! If he'da given me t'swing all woulda been right rosie!" Louie insisted. Hymie wasn't sure of the logic of his son, but he was secretly proud that his kid "ain't gonna take nuttin' from those schmendriks", whomever they be, so he let him go.
That's when I learned: it's not the guy that starts it that starts it – it's the guy that hits back that starts it. If he would just lay back and take it – it would be over all and the world would be one.
I've seen this unique rule of justice applied particularly to Israel, especially when you see media headlines like: "Palestinian with grandma's chicken knife is killed by Israeli police; two Israelis stabbed by knife". The guy with the knife just wanted to cut a piece of chicken for granny; the knife magically killed people on its own. Once again: Israel's blamed for not rolling over and playing dead.
So to make this easier for the reader – here is a list of "symmetrical" violence:
Israelis:    Build houses in ancient homeland.
Arabs:       Kill Jews.
Israelis:    Drive on highway used by Jews and Arabs.
Arabs:       Kill Jews.
Israelis:   Wish to pray at site of ancient Jewish Temples, but don't because Israeli police won't let them.
Arabs:      Kill Jews.
Israelis:   Want to live in a Jewish state.
Arabs:      Kill Jews.
Israelis:    Want to negotiate peace but Arab leaders leave talks.
Arabs:       Kill Jews.
That's symmetry in the media.
P.S. Of course – not ALL Arabs are like that, just enough to make the nightly news.